Blooming
by Original Blue
Summary: Although they'd never admit it, Isas and Niva helped each other grow up. One-shot.
1. G

It was not in Isas's nature to be fascinated with other people. On the whole he preferred plants, who would not leave him, or tell him he was inadequate, or force him to demonstrate his skills for family members he didn't even like. That was why he enjoyed Lightsbridge so much. The mages here tested and expanded upon his skill, and he was expected to know things. He was not fawned over, or his powers exclaimed upon; he could disappear into the masses of students that attended the sprawling college. Any attention drawn to him would be completely under his own control.

But she was an irregularity. Where he had been taught it was inappropriate to sit in the soil, to dirty his hands with common plants, she found a special pleasure in getting clothes filthy enough to need to change them. She'd been raised on a farm, he gathered. She acted like it. She sat in the sun wearing breeches bound at the calf and a wide sleeved tunic, barefoot but uncaring. She spoke with the vines outside her window, and carefully grew strawberries on the ledge. The strawberries were the first deliberate magic she ever did. She introduced a dye from one of the loom houses, stolen no doubt, and managed to produce several colors of strawberry. Isas was forced to admit that they were delicious and beautiful, though not aloud, of course.

That was something he was embarrassed about. He hadn't spoken to her about the incident with the roses. She'd shown him the extent of his own pride in thinking that only he was truly a mage, among the nearly two dozen novices in their group. He supposed his silence had been because he had been jealous of the ease and love with which she handled the plants. He caught himself wishing that he had been born a farmer, had grown up knowing plants and growing things as objects of affection and wonder.

She wasn't top of the class for the first year or so; she got distracted by something new in the gardens, and often failed to turn in some piece of work. Isas kept that distinction. But it irked him to no end how comfortable she was in the workshop, how easily she learned things that took him weeks to develop and understand.

Niva. The Anderran girl, a mud-roller. A short girl with a sharp tongue and the darkest red hair he'd ever seen. She was pretty enough, her pale skin being her only obvious vanity, but when she turned those furious eyes on you, you forgot about the beauty and remembered the sight of vicious thorns and stickers she could create when provoked.

The green magic inside her, _that_ was what he was fascinated with, he told himself. Anything else was unthinkable.


	2. R

He was watching her. She could _tell_ he was watching her, even when her eyes were glued to their professor. And it irked her that he never said whatever was bothering him. She remembered when they were in a group of novices chosen to attend Lightsbridge. He had treated her as though she was an annoyance, not even worth his time. Although, to be fair, he treated everyone like that unless they were a Dedicate or Initiate of one of the Living Circles. And then he stared at her as she made a bush of roses bloom and fade, and he scratched his finger on one of the thorns. He didn't bother to wipe the blood away, he just watched her brush the pale pink petals from her lap. He didn't speak to her for the rest of the trip. _Well excuse _me_,_ she thought. _He's just mad I'm not some noble's brat. He's mad that I got to study here without using my parents' connections._

A brief smirk lit her face.

_And he's mad that I'm better than him._

It wasn't all bluff and bluster, either. She _was_ better than him, most of the time. The plants talked to her, and wanted her, and moved around her, and they wouldn't do it around him. They explained to her that he got angry and started turning different shades of red when they made too much fuss, so they settled for brushing him as he passed by. Why he wouldn't want their strength, their love, the wonderful growing feeling of her green friends, completely escaped her.

"Niva! Child, what _are_ you doing? It's nearly a bell until dawn! Have you been out here all night? Come here _at once_!"

That was the voice of one of her teachers, most likely getting ready to give her a scolding for lying in the dirt outside, especially so late at night. But Niva wasn't in the mood to deal with the mage teachers, who were forever fussing and plucking at details until she wasn't even sure she wanted to learn magic anymore. She wanted to leave these noisy people who stepped on plants with no regard for the poor things' feelings, who wouldn't let her be for a moment, who didn't understand that sometimes she felt all cold and caged, and needed some warmth that didn't come from a fireplace.

She stood, looked the furious teacher in the eye and sprinted off into the gardens, long red braids thumping against her shoulders as she ran.


	3. O

When she passed him in the hallway one afternoon, he smelled something new, something that reminded him of a breeze ruffling his hair. It smelled like cinnamon and something else, something that took the edge off and added a dull sweetness. Some sort of perfume? It stayed in his mind all day.

Late one night, homework finished and placed in his shoulder bag, he sat down at his workbench and opened one of the small bottles that sat in a row against the wall. He was determined to find out what was in the scent.

He finished an hour before dawn, exhausted but smug. Two parts cinnamon, one part plumeria, one part sage, and one part rosemary extract, added to a mixture of alcohol, oil and water. It was excruciatingly simple, but he hadn't thought to use plumeria until he'd failed with roses, rosehips, and essence of rosebuds. Plumeria smelled like roses, in the right amounts, only far more potent.

Flush with victory, he decided to take a walk, relax a little. It was doubtful he would manage to sleep, as excited as he was. But as he turned the corner towards the gardens, he caught a glimpse of dark red braids disappearing into the thick growth. He heard yelling from one of the mage teachers and barely managed not to smile. Only Niva made people that angry.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was running after her.

He was determined to find her, and asked the plants around him where she'd gone. They showed him, though they saw her as a blaze of power, green power through her very veins, so utterly different from the stocky redhead. He thanked the plants politely and strode through the hushed rows of growing things.


	4. W

It was _wonderful_ being out of the stone monster they called the college. She rested against the trunk of a pepper tree, rolling several of the tiny bitter red berries between her fingers. There had been a tree like this outside her house, one that she'd played in with her brothers. Then the raiders came, and one of them set fire to it, and as she watched the flames she screamed, feeling the burning herself. She shuddered.

The wind was slow tonight, and Niva knew it would get colder, but she didn't care. She crossed her legs in a tailor's seat and began to breathe deeply, counting to seven before releasing.

To her eyes the garden was a giant living being, oozing plant life and serenity. She sunk into her magic, feeling the plants lean towards her, feeling their roots holding the soil together, the slow grace they had. Her body was chilled, she knew, but she ignored it and let her magic self fall backwards into the gnarled tree at her back.

She felt herself getting caught up in the rings, the history of the huge tree, the memories, from the time when it was a seedling someone carelessly tossed in the college's courtyard. She saw an older woman who glowed green on the inside and watered the tree, still a sapling. She felt the snows fall, felt the slowness that came with age in growing things. Her skin felt like bark, her hair leaves. The wind blew across her face, bringing sweet moisture and the scent of wet earth. She sighed deeply, wanting to sleep here forever.


	5. U

It was going to rain. He had no weather magic, but the clouds filling the sky were heavy with water.

He'd spent nearly half an hour searching for her, getting confused messages from the plants. They said she was becoming one of them; she was turning greener all the time. They were happy, knowing she would be with them forever, letting them know how much she loved them. She was _pulsing_ inside with the green magic.

Their words made Isas sweat with fear.

He finally found her beneath an enormous tree – Anderran Pepper, he thought absently, _schinus terebinthifolius_ – and she was glowing. Just a soft light, green as spring, but Isas's hands began to shake. He grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to move her. She was limp. He carefully peeled back one of her eyelids, but her iris didn't react to the light at all; her eyes were completely still, and for a moment he was afraid she was dead. But no – he swiftly pulled an unlabeled bottle out of one pocket, dabbed the liquid onto his eyelids and looked at her again.

Her magic. It was alive. It was seeping into the earth around her body.

He began to breathe again, heart still pounding, and straightened up. Then he put two fingers in between his lips and let out an ear splitting whistle. As soon as he heard the sound of running feet, he turned back to Niva, cradling her still form to his chest.

"Don't you dare die," he whispered.


	6. P

"-lucky you were there, Isas. She most likely would have died. She still might, if she doesn't have the strength-"

"-she has the strength." That cold voice was absolute. "I will make sure she has the strength."

...

"-better take this magic, you stupid girl, because it's all I can do to help you, and if you don't, and you die, I'll never be able to tell you what was in your pox-rotted perfume-"

_Sleep,_ Niva thought. _Quiet. Still. Sleep._

...

"-will pay for prolonged treatment if she suffers brain damage or madness? Her father? Or Winding Circle? She is a novice there. Maybe one of them can-" There was a pause and some whispering. "Oh. I see. He has taken care of all of it?" More hushed words.

A cool hand brushed her forehead. "You are lucky, Niva, to have a friend such as him."

_Niva,_ she thought, _is that me?_

And then the blackness swallowed her again.

...

Her eyes opened slowly. She was in a white room, under white sheets, with someone dozing in a chair next to her bed. Reaching over with one hand – _that's right, I have hands;_ she studied them with faint interest – she brushed his dark hair out of his face. He woke immediately, staring at her.

He wanted to say something meaningful to her. Something to describe the agony he'd witnessed in her. Instead, what came out of his mouth was: "Plumeria."

Her jaw dropped in surprise. "What?"

He coughed into one fist. "Your perfume. I know the ingredients. The plumeria was to dull the cinnamon, I presume."

Her eyes were unreadable. "Yes. And some sage for tang."

Isas sighed, resting his head in his hands. "You've been asleep for nearly two weeks. We weren't even sure you would wake up." He tried to smile and failed. "I told them you would."

Niva's eyebrows snapped together. "Of course I would have woken up! I was happy there, finally, but it's not like it was dangerous. I'm sick of this stupid school, where people claim to do things for my own good but end up ruining everything!" She clenched her fists. "Why can't they just leave me alone?"

Now he frowned. "That is the silliest thing I've ever heard from you. If you don't like this school, you can leave it, although I'll think less of you if you do. You didn't have to tempt the gods by trying to become something you're not."

"I wasn't going to die," she said stubbornly. "I was just trying to feel what that tree felt. It was fantastic, all the years packed in those rings, rolled out for me to see and experience-" She stopped at the odd expression on his face.

"Perhaps those are our faults," he said at last. "I have too much restraint and you not enough. Niva, you must promise me _never_ to do that again. _Never_."

She sighed and looked down. "I promise." They sat in silence for a few minutes.

Finally Niva spoke again. "But you have to promise me something, Isas."

His eyes met hers. "What is it?"

"You have to tell me how you figured out my perfume."

His smile was shaky, but it was there. "That's fine." He raked a hand through his long black hair. "And when we're done maybe you can figure one of my own creations."

She smirked. "As if I couldn't."


End file.
